It's been awhile since I posted about the Olympics... in fact, now that I have started the school year, I have been amassing several interesting things to blog/rant about. Unfortunately, I will only have time to cover a few.

The first is my courseload this semester. While it seems more than ambitious to take on 3 Ph.D-level courses combined with two FULL sections of English 101 (which means responding to 48 responses every other day), I'm actually loving it. I love to be busy, because it makes me prioritize. One course in particular is already helping me; it's Jane Gallop's course in critical writing.

In this course, the 7 of us -- 8 including Professor Gallop-- workshop each other's writing. But it's not a creative-writing-style workshop, where we say what we like or what we feel. No, it is, in Dr. Gallop's words, "not a social affair." That means we go word-by-word, line-by-line, and no jumping ahead. Last week, we got through 2 paragraphs in about 45 minutes. Yeah. Next week, when it's my turn, I think I'm just going to cry. It's like the Inquisition.

But it's already helping. For her class, I've been reading Peter Elbow's Writing with Power; that combined with JG's relentless pursuit of clarity and perfection, has led to significant advances in my writing process. I cut down a 3.5 page response to 2.5 pages yesterday... a full page. Not only that, but I'm thinking about my writing more, and stressing less. (I know... I was shocked too. But bear with me, folks). Elbow says that if writers worry less, they will be able to accomplish more writing and better writing. It's not about the generation, but about the revision process.

Some of you are probably thinking, "duh." And rightly so. But this is a new development for me, someone who has always struggled with writing and who has always felt stressed out by it. I've had comments written on my papers such as: "Cut the flab off your sentences," "Your prose is clunky, like an out of tune piano, it stumbles," "Is this an essay?", and, my personal favorite, "No."

But maybe it's my ideas that need more explanation as well. Several professors have told me that I have a fast brain, and that I make connections so quickly without seeing that others don't. I am hoping that being more precise in my writing will allow me to do that.

Somewhat related to writing, my English 101 classes have gotten off to a rocky start. I guess I've just had great ones in the past, because I never expected what I've been getting so far. I must have been lucky. These two are made up of admittedly good students for the most part, and most of them are willing to go along with me, but they're loud. I;ve never had to spend 4 days telling any class that this is not like high school-- I want them to think for themselves. Usually, most classes just assume, or keep it to themselves.

It makes me think about how education is working in this country. I'm beginning to think that students would be much better off not learning "facts" or real information, and instead learn to think in high school, and get the content later in college. But of course, no one listens to me, and then not everyone goes to college. I have to keep remembering that since we choose to educate everyone in America (well, sort of -- if you're white and have money, that is), these problems arise. Then again, I ought to change my expectations a little. I've chastised the English department here for expecting our students to be English critics, and then I enter the classroom with the expectation that they're going to want to break away from the high school mode. Moral of the story: expect nothing, and be ready to change course at the drop of a hat.